PLOS Science Wednesday: Hi Reddit, my name is Israel and through phylogenetics, I identified a new species and genus of palaeomerycids from Spain, Xenokeryx amidalae – Ask Me Anything!

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Hi Reddit,

My name is Israel, and currently I am an associated researcher at the ICP-Miquel Crusafont (Catalan Institute of Paleontology-Barcelona, Spain) and also collaborate with the Department of Paleobiology at the MNCN-CSIC (Madrid, Spain). My research focuses on the evolution of ruminant mammals.

My colleagues and I recently published a paper titled ‘Systematics and Evolution of the Three-Horned Palaeomerycid Ruminants (Mammalia, Cetartiodactyla)’ in PLOS ONE. In this paper we explored the evolution of the large clade of ruminants of which the extant giraffes (Giraffa and Okapia) are the only living representatives. We named this clade the Giraffomorpha (the giraffe-like ruminants). We also tested the phylogenetic position of the strange-looking palaeomerycids, describing a spectacular new genus and species from Spain: Xenokeryx amidalae (named after the Star Wars character Padme Amidala, read the paper to discover why). Contrary to what was previously thought we discovered that palaeomerycids were a Eurasian branch of giraffomorphs not related to cervids or North American dromomerycids (another group of strange-looking three-horned ruminants) as formerly believed.

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">PLOS Science Wednesday: Hi Reddit, my name is Israel and through phylogenetics, I identified a new species and genus of palaeomerycids from Spain, Xenokeryx amidalae – Ask Me Anything!